PBS
Gravitational Wave Background Discovered?
It was pretty impressive when LIGO detected gravitational waves from colliding black holes. Well we’ve just taken that to the next level with a galaxy-spanning gravitational wave detector that may have detected a foundational element of...
PBS
How Whale Evolution Kind Of Sucked
Mystacodon is the earliest known mysticete, the group that, today, we call the baleen whales. But if this was a baleen whale, where was its baleen? Where did baleen come from? And how did it live without it?
PBS
How the Andes Mountains Might Have Killed a Bunch of Whales
At a site known as Cerro Ballena or Whale Hill, there are more than 40 skeletons of marine mammals -- a graveyard of ocean life dating back 6.5 million to 9 million years ago, in the Late Miocene Epoch. But the identity of the killer...
PBS
How Ancient Whales May Have Changed the Deep Ocean
It looks like the evolution of ocean-going whales like Borealodon may have affected communities found in the deep ocean, like the ones found around geothermal vents. And it turns out that when a whale dies, that’s just the beginning of...
PBS
How Plate Tectonics Gave Us Seahorses
How did seahorses — one of the ocean’s worst swimmers — spread around the globe? And where did they come from in the first place?
PBS
Where Did Water Come From?
Mercury, Venus, and Mars are all super low on water – so where did ours come from and why do we have so much of it? We think our water came from a few unlikely sources: meteorites, space dust, and even the sun.
PBS
When Ichthyosaurs Led a Revolution in the Seas
The marine reptiles Ichthyosaurs arose after The Great Dying, which wiped out at least 90 percent of life in the oceans, changing the seas forever and triggering a new evolutionary arms race between predator and prey.
PBS
The World Before Plate Tectonics
There was a time in Earth’s history that was so stable, geologists once called it the Boring Billion. But the fact is, this period was anything but boring. In fact, it set the stage for our modern version of plate tectonics - and...
PBS
Something Has Been Making This Mark For 500 Million Years
Paleodictyon, a hexagonal-patterned fossil, is a bit of a mystery. We don’t even know if it’s a trace fossil, or the organism itself. So… what could it be?
PBS
How Worm Holes Ended Wormworld
Elongated tubes, flat ribbons, and other “worm-like” body plans were so varied and abundant that a part of the Ediacaran is sometimes known as Wormworld. But in the end, the ancient Wormworld was ended by the actions of its very own worms.
PBS
How Volcanoes Froze the Earth (Twice)
Over 600 million years ago, sheets of ice coated our planet on both land and sea. How did this happen? And most importantly for us, why did the planet eventually thaw again? The evidence for Snowball Earth is written on every continent...
PBS
How Plants Caused the First Mass Extinction
In the middle of the Cambrian, life on land was about to get a little more crowded. And those newcomers would end up changing the world. The arrival of plants on land would make the world colder, drain much of the oxygen out of the...
Be Smart
Is Earth's Most Important Ocean Current Doomed?
Ocean currents are our planet’s circulatory system, and they keep everything from ecosystems to the climate healthy. But we’re changing Earth in ways that threaten to disrupt and even break critical ocean currents like the planet-wide...
Be Smart
Why the Plastic Pollution Problem Is So Much Worse Than You Think
There’s been a lot of talk on YouTube lately about ocean plastic pollution and #TeamSeas. But there hasn’t been enough talk about the *ridiculously unthinkable scale of the ocean plastic pollution problem* or how it intersects with other...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The one thing stopping jellyfish from taking over | Mariela Pajuelo and Javier Antonio Quinones
Over the past two decades, jellyfish have begun to overwhelm our oceans. If things stay on their current trajectory, we could be headed for a future where the entire ocean is thick with jellyfish. So, is there anything that can keep...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why did Megalodon go extinct? | Jack Cooper and Catalina Pimiento
20 million years ago, the ocean housed a creature so colossal that its stomach could reach volumes of almost 10,000 liters— big enough to fit an entire orca. It was the megalodon, the biggest shark to ever live. So, what was it like when...
TED Talks
TED: Why rivals are working together to transform shipping | Bo Cerup-Simonsen
What would it take to make global supply chains cleaner and greener? Bo Cerup-Simonsen -- who's helping decarbonize the maritime industry as CEO of the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping -- discusses why tenacious...
SciShow
Why Can’t We Scoop All the Plastic Out of the Ocean?
Lots of people want to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and plastics have a huge impact on ocean environments. But marine wildlife are already adapting to our plastic waste, which means cleaning it up isn't as simple as just......
SciShow
Adorable Dolphin Kiddos Play Like Us
Whether it's solo or with a friend, young dolphins love to partake in a bit of play.
SciShow
Are We Making More Bermuda Triangles?
One reason the Bermuda Triangle has scared people for generations is the seaweed. And thanks to eutrophication and other human causes, that Sargassum seaweed is starting to travel the world. Here's how we're accidentally making more of...
SciShow
Does the Food Chain Stop At Jellyfish?
Jellyfish aren't the most nutritious animals in the ocean. Yet sea turtles and many other organisms get their nutrition from almost nothing else. Here's why they don't totally starve to death.
SciShow
Can Sponges “Think” Using Light?
Sponges might not look like particularly complex animals, but they've had billions of years to evolve their own special systems. And one of those systems might involve sending messages through their body in the form of light.
SciShow
The Southern Hemisphere is Colder, Stormier, and... Cleaner?
You'd think that the Northern and Southern Hemispheres would be basically symmetrical -- that since our planet is a ball, the climate, temperature, and weather patterns would be the same on top as on the bottom. But there are some...
SciShow
This Squid Glows… To Make Itself Invisible
When you live in the ocean, it can be hard to find ways to keep hidden from predators, or from your own prey. But these three animals have found clever ways to stay hidden, by using light to their advantage. One of them even /makes...